If you follow closely what is happening when it comes to America’s incarceration of kids in prisons as I do, you realize that, despite some high profile cases in which reforms have been set in motion—at New York City’s Rikers Island, for example—the news is not very good.

Certainly progress has been made in individual cases. Those youth advocates who have worked tirelessly to bring changes about should be honored and thanked—as well as the many thousands of young people who have suffered and died as a result of our cruel prison system; those lives and deaths have been a call for justice and reform to many of us. But there is still much to do across this country when it comes to children in prison.

Fusion, an online progressive news journal, recently had an article, “16 Images that Demonstrate America’s Addiction to Jailing Children” that proves the point that progress is slow to almost nonexistent in reforming our juvenile justice system. The article’s powerful images and stark statistics make it clear why we have a lot of work to do in saving our children from a system that seems more interested in punishment than in rehabilitation. These numbers and pictures present a reality that is hard to turn our back on.

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Very much so. It’s a waste of human power and resources. For kids in prison it’s extremely difficult to overcome the fact of incarceration, not to mention what happened to them while in jail in terms of abuse and violence. Also kids in prison too often become adults in prison, and the human waste plus the financial cost to society have such a negative effect on us as a country.